How can we film it?

[Anonymous]

I went to RMA, and desperately want to make a documentary film about what kids go through at those programs.

It is easy to get interviews, but how can we film it?

I can think of two ways to capture an AUTHENTIC experience on film:

1. Enroll someone and bring them a hidden camera. This would be extremely hard, due to strip searching, and you could not exploit a child.

2. Work there, use a hidden camera.

I want a real rap, propheet, workshop, daily life, restriction, all of it on film.

Any ideas and comments are greatly appreciated!!

[try another castle]

It's potentially unethical.

First, you can be sued, because releases were not signed. With interviews, that is easy enough to get releases, but not with the other stuff you are talking about. (Hidden cams, and the like.)

Second, think about it. Would you want people seeing the kind of shit you had to do, and what was done to you, in a rap, in a propheet? All the humiliating crap you had to do and say? You want that on film? On the big screen?

I honestly don't know what Zadig productions did with their film on Tranquility Bay, and how they went about it. Especially since I haven't seen it, since we in the states are still waiting for all of it to come out of litigation. I'm interested to see how they handled the filming of group sessions, if they did at all.

Also, RMA doesn't exist anymore. It's only NWA, BCA and Ascent.

[drlongjon]

well when I went to Ascent, the physical abuse from staff was as bad as the emotional abuse from RMA.

[try another castle]

It will be interesting to see if anything truly changes under the new ownership. My vote is no. Actually, my vote is a resounding Whitney Houston "hell to the no!"

DL, who was heading up Ascent when you were there? I heard that Stacy was running it for a while.

[try another castle]

Ascent was wilderness. Well, it was wilderness-as-punishment. This was an entirely different animal to the wilderness expeditions you would have with your peer group at RMA.

When I was there, if kids fucked up enough, they were sent to survival, which was in southern Idaho. blownaway had to do it, actually. You did your time there, and then came back to the school. After I had gone, RMA had developed Ascent to replace that. So I'm pretty sure that once Ascent was in place, nobody was sent to survival. They would just be sent there. I think kids who were considered more "troublesome" would often be sent to Ascent first, before even being enrolled, and then they would go to one of the Idaho CEDU schools.

I don't know a whole lot about it, I know that some of it was built off of a model similar to sagewalk, with things like ridiculous time limits in which to get up in the morning and have  your things ready, and if not everyone was ready by that time, they had to take everything apart and do it again, until everyone could get in under five minutes. The other thing I remember hearing was "potty please". At night, you would have to ask staff permission to go to the bathroom, by standing there and going "potty please"? One poster on here said that the staff would a lot of times ignore you for a while. I think you even had to put on special boots.

I don't know offhand how long the Ascent program was.

[drlongjon]

I was sent there for 6 weeks for running away from RMA. I also escaped from Ascent for a few days so they added 2 more weeks to my stay. I got my ass whooped there by a guy named Shawn, the only hispanic in Idaho.

[Anonymous]

The other thing I remember hearing was "potty please". At night, you would have to ask staff permission to go to the bathroom, by standing there and going "potty please"? One poster on here said that the staff would a lot of times ignore you for a while. I think you even had to put on special boots.

My finely-tuned 'perverted fantasy finding a way into reality' alarm has gone off, Castle...

[try another castle]

The other thing I remember hearing was "potty please". At night, you would have to ask staff permission to go to the bathroom, by standing there and going "potty please"? One poster on here said that the staff would a lot of times ignore you for a while. I think you even had to put on special boots.

My finely-tuned 'perverted fantasy finding a way into reality' alarm has gone off, Castle...

If so, it's not mine.

I believe it's true, however. A lot of these places use toilet humiliation. Just look at straight and WWASPS.

Besides, if memory serves, the story was corroborated by more than one poster. Do a search for "potty please" and see what you come up with.

Ultimately, I wouldn't know for certain, since I never went to Ascent.

[Antigen]

I think you're reading it wrong, MGDP. It's not that floor staff nor the back-room boys who ultimately made policy were getting off on this shit (though, no doubt, some who did were drawn to those positions) as much as that they had boned up (so to speak...) on the psyche analysis which informed them that we would be traumatized by this specific line of harassment in just the way they wanted.

In the Seed, they posted an olcomer with responsibilities outside the bathroom door to mark down on a pad of paper whether you went in for #1 or #2 and what you reported on the way out. In Straight, they just made you wait. You could sit there for 3 hours with your hand up without getting permission from the 5th phaser to leave group and relieve yourself. Some kids couldn't last that long and they would be castigated in front of group for it.

Funny thing. I dated a much older man when I was a young mother. He was a Vietnam vet and, so he said, special forces, CIA asset and all the rest. I'll never be able to swear that he was telling the truth about anything he told me, but he sure was right about one thing. Next time my mom put on her shrew voice and asked "What's the matter with you!?" he told me to respond by saying "I dunno, poor potty training?" and I did and I haven't heard that question out of her since.

Crazy as Louis was, I think maybe he was onto something and not 100% predatorial. Maybe half, but certainly not more than 80% at most.

[drlongjon]

potty please was used at Ascent while I was there but you didn't have to ask in those words. They sometimes gave you a hard time but not always. Those out houses were so disgusting it was punishment enough just to have to use them.

[Anonymous]

I was at ascent in 2001- we most certainly said "potty please."

man, I forgot about the ridiculous time frames. [/i]

[drlongjon]

I guess it depended on  when you were there and who was in charge. I was there in the summer of 1993.